Queer Places:
Kensico Cemetery
Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, USA
Gordon Scott (born Gordon Merrill Werschkul; August 3, 1926[1] – April 30, 2007[1]) was an American film and television actor known for his portrayal of the fictional character Tarzan in five films (and one compilation of three made-as-a-pilot television episodes) of the Tarzan film series from 1955 to 1960. Gordon Scott was the eleventh Tarzan, starting with Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle (1955). He was "discovered" poolside, and offered "a seven-year contract, a loin cloth, and a new last name."[2]
Darwin Porter, author of Merv Griffin: a Life in the Closet, said: “We met in ’59 when he sang for my senior prom and the student committee paid him $500. What he made then was a far cry from the billionaire he was at the end. He lost his virginity, to a female, that is, when Judy Garland seduced him. His first crush was Errol Flynn, whom he saw passed out naked on a couch. His roommate a year and a half was Montgomery Clift. He lived with Roddy McDowall at the Dakota, where he introduced Eddie Fisher to Elizabeth Taylor. He maintained a virtual male harem and a pimp who supplied porn stars. He dated Rock Hudson, whom he met through Henry Wilson, Rock’s agent, and who advised him to keep his sexuality quiet. And there was a young James Dean selling his sex for cash. Plus Judy Garland’s ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ boy next door, Tom Drake, who ended up a used car salesman. There was Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, Gordon Scott, the then-Tarzan. And lots about Merv’s prolonged sexual tryst with Marlon Brando. There are his experiences at Liberace’s all-male orgies. His first encounter, a boyhood friend he grew up with, later tried writing a book about Merv. This being an era when male actors felt homosexuality was a danger to their career, lawyers shot down that book fast.”
Scott was born Gordon Merrill Werschkul in Portland, Oregon, one of nine children of advertising man Stanley Werschkul and his wife Alice.[3] He was raised in Oregon and attended the University of Oregon, located in Eugene, Oregon, for one semester. Upon leaving school, he was drafted into the United States Army in 1944. He served as a drill sergeant and military policeman until he was honorably discharged in 1947. He then worked at a variety of jobs until 1953 when he was spotted by a talent agent while working as a lifeguard at the Sahara Hotel and Casino, located on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada.
"Due in part to his muscular frame and 6-foot-3-inch [1.91-metre] height, he was quickly signed to replace Lex Barker as Tarzan"[4] by producer Sol Lesser. Lesser had Gordon change his name because "Werschkul" sounded too much like "Weismueller".[5] Scott's Tarzan movies ranged from rather cheap re-edited television pilots to large-scale action films with high-production values shot on location in Africa. In his early Tarzan films, he played the character as unworldly and inarticulate, in the mold of Johnny Weissmuller, an earlier Tarzan portrayer. In Scott's later films, after a change in producers, he played a Tarzan who was educated and spoke perfect English, as in the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels.[6] Scott was the only actor to play Tarzan in both styles. Fearing he would become typecast as Tarzan, Scott moved to Italy and became a popular star in epics of the péplum genre (known in the United States as sword-and-sandal), featuring handsome bodybuilders as various characters from Greek and Roman myth. Scott was a friend of Steve Reeves, and collaborated with him as Remus to Reeves's Romulus in Duel of the Titans (1961). Scott also played Hercules in a couple of international co-productions during the mid-1960s. As the péplum genre faded, Scott starred in Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy films. His final film appearance was in The Tramplers (filmed in 1966; released in the United States in 1968).
Scott was married two times. His first marriage was with Janice Mae Wynkoop of Oakland, California. They met when he was a lifeguard at Lake Temescal, located in Oakland, California. The couple married in Reno, Nevada, in 1948, and had one child, Karen Judith Werschkul (born August 26, 1948), before divorcing in 1949. He was married to actress Vera Miles, his Tarzan co-star, from 1956 to 1960. He had one son with Miles – Michael, born 1957 – and possibly several other children.[7][8] For the last two decades of his life, Scott was a popular guest at film conventions and autograph shows.[7]
Scott died, aged 80, in Baltimore, Maryland of lingering complications from multiple heart surgeries earlier in the year.[9][8] He is buried in the Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, New York.
My published books:
https://thelifeandtimesofhollywood.com/book-merv-griffins-sexual-relations-with-rock-hudson-marlon-brando-and-all-of-tinseltown/